Multiple-disk gearing.



C. P. WBTHBRBEE.

MULTIPLE DISK GEABING.

APPLIGATIOH FILED No.2?. 1909.

Patented Sept. 10, 1912.

@Los

MULTIPLE-msx G EARING.

Speoication of Letters atent. A

Patented sept. 1o, 1912.

Application mea December a7, 190e. .semi No. 535,194. s

, I To all whom it may concern:

BEE, of Bath, in the county specification.

transmitting power from turbine engines.

For instance in transmitting the power from F the turbine of a steamship to the propeller shaft, it is sometimes necessary to employ. gears having a face width of as much as- That is the extent of the gears in the direction of their axes isl In other words, it is neces-4 one hundred inches.

this amount. sary to use gears of which the width, or dimension parallel to the axis is relatively great as compared with the diameter. With gears of lthis character it is diicult if not impossible to cut the teeth and aline the shafting. so accuratel throughout the whole width of their contacting faces.' This is particularly true where either of the shafts is run at very high speed, as inthe case of the turbine shaft. The resultof the uneven bearing whichcannot be avoided with solid gears is that the pressure which should be distributed evenly throughout the entire length of the teeth in contact is concentrated at one point' on the teeth and crushes the metal thereof, causing rapid wear, noise and vibration.

It is my object to overcome the difficulty encountered in connection with gearing of this character b makin the teeth of one gear of a pair ocally yielding, so that-.in case the bearing pressure is concentrated at one point on a tooth this part of the'tooth may yield sufficiently to enable all parts of the tooth to take their share of the pressure. I have found that this object may be carried into efectb `making such gear composite, that is, by rming the complete gear out of anumbe'r of ear-shaped disks placed side by'side on a older with provisions fr f that intermeshing. .teeth w1ll bear even y upon each otherv i movinginde endently about the holder op- Be it known that I, CHARLES P. ,WETHER- of Sagadahoc and State of Maine, have invented certain 'new and useful Improvements in Multi le- Disk Gearing, of which the followingis a applied by or to it, and applying means such This invention relates to gearingparticu- 1 larly designed to transmitrheavy'powers at't high speed. Gears designed for this purpose require a great width of bearing face g on their teeth, Iparticularly when used for the composite ear is used as the driver, or in the direction o rotation when it acts as the driven gear, and in any case, transversely of the axis of rotation in the line of thrust positely to t e direction of rotation, where transmitting elements as well, `inc uding clutches, whatever thek form of the element may be, whether cylindrical or otherwise, Iand Whether the teeth are formed on the periphery or face of the element. As the principles of the invention are the same what.

ever may be the type of gear or toothed machine element, it is unnecessary to illustrate and describe more than oneform of toothed element in which the invention may be embodied, and accordingly I have illustrated and described only the spur gear or inion form, stating, however, that I do not y any means limit the scope of my invention and of the claims 'in which the invention is set forthto this particular form or type of gearing.

In the drawings, Figure 1 represents a longitudinal section of a pair of gears in which my invention is embodied, and by which the form of one-.application thereofis illustrated.4 Fig. 2 is a cross-section of the gearing on the line 2 2 of Fig. 1. Fig.

3 is a detail of the composite or multiple disk gear. j Fig. 4 is a perspective view of :'a friction disk forming one member of the composite gear.

The same reference characters lndicate -the same-parts in all the figures.

-1 and 2 represent complemental gears suitablysecured to shafts 3 and 4 respectively. Either of these shafts may be the driver and either the follower. These gears are of comparatively great length, and conj sequently the bearing over the intermeshing teeth visve'rywide in comparison tothe width or height of such l teeth. If .the teeth on the two gears are'not exactly parallel they will not bear evenly over their entire extent when coming into mesh, and-the pressuretransmitted from one to the other will, therefore, inthe case of solid gears be concentrated on a small area,- with resulting injury to the metal and ra id wear, accompanied also by objectionab e noise. In the manufacture of gears having substantially the proportions illustrated, it is almost impossible to make the sides of their teeth absolutely straight and to aline them so that the bearing on meshing teeth is uniformly distributed. This .diiculty is still further increased when the shafts on which the ears are mounted'are long and are runat 'gh speeds. One ofthe gears, as the gear 1, is made of a large number of sections, each section being a disk 5. These disks are provided withgear teeth on their peripheries when made as parts of a spur gear and are placed side by side upon the shaft 3 or upon a holder 6, mounted upon said shaft. The

disks loosely surround the'holder, whereby they are enabled to rotate independently about the axis of the latter and of the shaft, and may be brought into such position that their-teeth are in alinement. The pitch of v friction disks 7 between the toothed disks v5.

.These friction disks have key members 8 shown. in Fig. 2, which enter longitudinal grooves or keyways 9 in the holder 6. The riction disks are thus capable of moving longitudinally on the holder, but are incapable of rotating inde endently thereof.

There may be as many o the friction disks as of the toothed disks, arranged in regular alternation-therewith, or the frictlon disks may be fewer in number and spaced relatively to the toothed disks in any arrangement desired. The toothed disks may be recessed at 10 as shown in Figs. 1 and 3 to admit the friction disks into their side faces and thereby enable the teeth to be practically continuous throughout the whole ength of the composite gear. As shown in Fig. 3, the recess, however, is not quite as deep as the. thickness of the friction disk and thus the disks are enabled to be brought into as tight frictional contact as desired, without causing the tootheddisks to come 'into direct contact with each other. Thus `contact of the -intermediate disks with the toothed disks is assured and danger of the pressure bein borne wholly or in part by thetoothed@ isks Jwith resulting failure of roper pressure being bron ht against the riction disks between them 1s eliminated.

At one end of the composite ear is an abutment 11, formed by a shoul er on the holder 6, and at the other end is a sprin actuated abutment 12'. The latter is held compressed against 'tlie disks by a spring,I

one form of which, where the gear is at-the end of its shaft, is a spring 13 surrounding a rod 14, which 'extends from the end of the shaft or holder. The rod is threaded at its end either into the shaft or into a nut 150 which is screwed internally into the holder 6 adjacent to the end of the shaft 3. On the outer end of-the rod 14 is a com osite "washer 15 against which the s ring 13 ears.

The part of the Washer engage by the spring is a spherical'se ment 16 adapted to adjust itself so as to ta e the thrust of the spring squarely. The other end of the spring 14 bears against a washer 17, whic has a spherical surface engaging a recess in thev abutment 12. A nut 1 8 on the outer end of the rod 14 enables the force of the spring to be adjusted. The spring 13 acting through the abutment or head 12 forces the disks to-v. ward the shoulder 11 and thereby `causes the toothed disks 5 to be frictionally clamped. The amount of this friction is regulated so that it is not too great to permit any single disk to yield when excessive pressure' is concentrated upon it, but it is great enough to cause the combined disks to transmit the power required.

As above noted, the arrangement described and illustrated is used when the gear is applied upon the end of a shaft. In case the gear should be put in the middle of a long line of shaftin or at some distance from/the 'end'of a -s aft, a slight modification in the proportions of the parts last described will be made, without in any wayfdepartin from or otherwise affecting the spirit of tie invention. In the case last supposed, the spring 13, washers and nut, are made suiiiclently large to encircle the shaft and the nut is screwed upon a thread cut directly on the shaft. f

If desired the head 12 may be made suiiiciently resilient to enable the external spring 13 to be dispensed with. In this case a nut bearing directly against the part 12 will enable suicient yieldin frictional pressure to be brought against t e disks for the urpose desired. 1 y

any modiicationsof the structural features of-the device may bemade, without departing from the spirit of the invention. Thus itis not necessary to mount the toothed andfrictiondisks on an additional holder, but they may if desired be mounted directly upon a shaft. The holder, however, convenient in enabling the composite gear as a wholeto be readily removed from and applied to a shaft.

I claim, y

1. A pair `of coperating gears, one of which is com osed .of separate members adapted to yield independently against frictional resistance for causing the power' transmitted to be evenly distributed over the contacting surfaces -of engaging teeth throulghoutthe entirelength of the ears.

2. air of coperating gears o which the teet of one are made of a. number of frictionally restrained independently yielding elements, the resistance to yielding of any one of said elements bein less, and the resistance of all combined being greater, than the force transmitted by the gear, whereby uniform pressure over contacting surfaces of the gear teeth is obtained.

3. A gear wheel havin the active portions of its .teeth com ose of a number of frictionally restrain elements arranged side by side and'movable independently in the direction of power transmission, whereby an even and uniform bearing on a complemental gear may be obtained.

4. A gear wheel having the active'portions of its teeth composed of a number of frictionally restrained elements arranged side by side and movable independently in the dlre'ct-ion of power transmission, and means resisting such motion with a force which is less for each individual element, than the power delivered to or from the entire gear, whereby the teeth are enabled to yield locall to obtain an even bearing on the teeth o a gear in mesh therewith.

5. The combination with a gear, of a gear meshed therewith and consisting of a number of toothed disks loosely mounted upon a rotar holder, friction disks keyed to the holder etween adjacent toothed disks, and means for crowding said disks together longitudinally on the holder for frictionally number of toothed disks rotatably an resisting independent movement of the toothed disks. Y 1 6. The combination with a gear, of a gear meshed'therewith and consisting of a plurality of toothed disks arranged side by side and frictionally held agalnst rotation in the same direction independently of one another.

7. The combination with a gear, of a gear meshed therewith and consistmg of a number of toothed disks loosely mounted upon a rotary holder, friction disks keyed to the holder between adjacenttoothed disks, and means for crowding said disks to ther 1ongitudinally on the holder for ictionally resisting independent movement of the toothed disks.

8. The combination with a gear, of a. gear meshed therewith and comprising a plurality of disks having alined teeth, and means for holding said disks so as to permit a yieldingly resisted movement of any one relatively to the others about the axis of the gear. l

9. The combination witha gear, of a gear meshed, therewith and consisting of a plurality of toothed disks arranged s1de by side and frictionally held against rotation in both directions independently of one another. l

10. The combination with a gear, of a gear meshed-therewith and consistin of da sli ably mounted upon a rotatable holder, friction disks keyed slidable but non-rotatable on the holder between adjacent toothed disks, and means for crowding said friction and tooth disks together longitudinally on the holder for frictionally resistin independent movement of the toothed dis In testimony whereof I have aiiixed my signature, in presence of two witnesses.

CHARLES P. WETHERBEE. Witnesses:

WM. M. ADAMS, R. DUN'mN. 

